Talks began yesterday (27 May) on the formation of a Flemish government, led by Bart De Wever, leader of the right-wing Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) party. N-VA won a third of the votes in the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium during the regional and federal elections on Sunday (25 May), allowing it to lead the talks at regional level. N-VA also emerged from the European Parliament election as the most successful party.

On Monday (26 May), King Philippe accepted the resignation of prime minister Elio Di Rupo’s federal government and invited party leaders for exploratory talks that will continue this week. The king will then decide who will be given the opportunity to lead the talks on forming a national government. De Wever and Di Rupo are the most likely candidates.

Before the elections, De Wever had already expressed his preference for forming a Flemish coalition with the centre party CD&V. The parties together would have 69 seats in the 124-seat Flemish parliament. Flemish prime minister Kris Peeters (CD&V) said: “An agreement will not necessarily be formed very fast. We should avoid making deals that we will regret in the future.”

N-VA is not in a position to ask a lot from its possible coalition partner, because if no agreement emerges, CD&V might well try to form a majority government with the liberal Open VLD and the socialists of Sp.a, and exclude the N-VA. If, however, things move fast and the N-VA is included in a Flemish government coalition, this would increase the party’s power in negotiations at federal level too.

It took a world-record 541 days to form a federal government after the 2010 national elections, and expectations are not high of a quick solution this time around either.

In the country’s French-speaking south, the Parti Socialiste (PS) led by Di Rupo saw its share of the vote fall from 32.8% in 2009 to 30.9%, but it still emerged as the largest party, with 30 seats in the 75-seat Walloon parliament, closely followed by the liberal Mouvement Reformateur (MR), which won 25 seats. In third place was the centre-left Centre Démocrate Humaniste with 13 seats. As PS has the most seats, it is probable that it will be the first to try to form a Walloon government.

The federal and regional elections in Belgium coincided with the European Parliament elections, and some similar trends emerged. N-VA won the most EP seats – four out of the 21 that the country is entitled to – followed by Open VLD, PS and MR with three seats. CD&V gets two seats. The Flemish and the Walloon greens would get one seat, as well as Sp.a and CDH. Extreme-right party Vlaams Belang has lost support significantly but has got just enough votes to secure its one seat in the European Parliament. One seat will be held by the German-speaking centre-right. In the elections for the Brussels region, that also took place on Sunday, PS won 21 seats, just ahead of MR, with 18 seats. The greens of Ecolo lost significantly, just as they did in the federal and the Walloon parliament. In total twelve parties won seats in the Brussels parliament, making government talks complex.

The elections for the German-speaking community were a close call between the Christian-democrats of Christlich Soziale Partei (with 25.6%) and the Pro deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft (24.5%). CSP won seven seats, Pro DG six seats, and the liberal party Vivant won four seats.